Needing something to occupy my mind while we waited for the instruction scrolls, I told Lithia we could grab something to eat. After finally getting to follow the appetizing smells, she happily chewed on a turkey leg, and me on a crepe. All of us outfitter competitors had congregated together. Some were certainly more friendly than others. I made conversation with a nice group of sisters who specialized in shoes - they even had some that could make you float.
But any sense of calm that I had recovered faded when I noticed Enos and his father. The satyr family was a bit of a distance from the main group, not even trying to make pleasantries. However, upon noticing us back, Enos walked over.
“ have entered the competition?” He asked incredulously. “How strange…”
“And what reason might be that strange?” I snapped.
He crossed his arms, the metal of his chest piece clinking together a bit. Today, he had stepped up his game and was wearing gold. “Oh, well let’s see here…your low level, your lack of experience, your…interesting choice of company.” He glanced at Lithia, who was glaring back.
“Can’t even pretend to be civil, can you?” She snarled.
“Relax, relax, I have no issue with you personally, but I know you hold a grudge over all that halfling nonsense, and I’m tired of hearing about all that. Besides... what good is a barbarian goblin for sewing clothes? Or whatever it is is you do to make your ‘light’ armor’.” He looked us up and down.
“Halfling nonsense…” Lithia muttered, but I jumped in before she could say anything else.
“Lithia is my friend,” I declared, “and unlike you, I know how to hold on to those. Besides, you never know when you might need a little muscle!”
She smiled while Enos rolled his eyes. “Right, well I guess we’ll just have to see how true that is.”
I noticed he was tapping his foot impatiently. While we had been bickering, the instruction scrolls for the first challenge had apparently already dropped for last year’s winners, and were starting to fall for those with the vendor bonus.
“Annoyed you aren’t getting special treatment as the armorer of Widnglen?” I asked, finishing up my crepe.
“I don’t need an advantage, if that’s what you’re implying,” he scoffed.
I shrugged. “Not implying anything, just picking up on context clues!”
He stopped talking to us at this point, and while the interaction appeared to have left him fuming, I felt a renewed sense of confidence. Despite his history in Windglen, the years of experience he had just bragged about, in this moment, we were equals - just two competitors on the same playing field.
In fact it didn’t even bother me that the first group likely got a twenty minute head start. Eventually, the lute players started up again and the messenger birds appeared in droves, floating above us. People were hitting [Accept] so quickly that the sound of the birds' chirping as it dropped the note drowned all other noise.
[To: Fanwen's Fabled Fabrics
Outfitter Charter Challenge 1: -
Any good piece of worn equipment starts with exemplary materials. Before we give you access to our personal supplier network, we would like you to prove you know how to recognize and source high quality items. So your first challenge is this - obtain a legendary level raw material,
Please return with your item to present in 3 days. You are allowed to do any questing or go to any location for your raw material, but you must do the collecting yourself
Be prepared to use your raw material in round 2, should you make it. ]
“So what is it then?” Lithia asked, watching me as I read.
“I may need your help once again,” I said apologetically.
“Now, you don’t need to say it like that, did you not just hear the way Enos spoke to me?” She smiled. “I’m in this just as much for me as I am for you. And Kaslan, of course. Now tell me, what are we doing?”
I filled her in. Finding a legendary raw material was much more difficult then making a legendary item. The rarity of an item was based on how many of said item existed in Oshiala. So if someone was crafting a potion for example, it could technically become legendary by just combining enough ingredients to the point it made a brand new concoction, regardless of the usefulness of the final product.
But a single item didn’t have that luxury, it was simply either rare or it wasn’t.
“Since you’re asking for my help, I assume you have a plan?”
I nodded. “Back in my hometown, I studied under a seamstress who was really good at taking common materials and making them something quite impressive. But…she always talked about her dream, which was to design with a phoenix feather.”
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“That’s legendary all right…” She looked curious, but skeptical.
“Yes, exactly. But the thing is, she actually had a lead on a location. But she was older, and past her questing days.” I remembered the day she told me about it. Knowledge of a phoenix location was coveted, and so I was surprised she had it, but even more surprised she hadn’t acted on it. I asked her why she didn’t simply hire some adventurers to go and fetch it.
Slyvana had stopped then, looking me square in the eye. “Fanwen, if I don’t impart much else on you, hear this - the equipment you create is a representation of who you are. Would you rather be represented by the toil of others, or your own efforts?”
And I had respected her words. Ever since that day, I got basic necessities such as thread and cotton from a supplier. But anything I felt that truly mattered, such as stat boosters and decorative touches, I either gathered myself or deconstructed from unwanted outfits I’d find sitting on a sale rack in the back of a shop.
“Alright,” Lithia said, bringing me back to the present. “So what are waiting for? Let’s go fetch you a phoenix feather.
[Discovered: Fuyu Peaks]
The Fuyu Peaks were not a popular questing spot. The cold was infamous, even with the best equipment climbers slowly take hits to their health, forcing them to turn around once you had no more potions to chug. On top of that, the peak was aptly named, a tall mountain requiring highly levelled Stamina skill to reach the top successfully. That was of course, the rumored location of the phoenix.
Despite being covered head to toe in the thickest fa
[Discovered: Fuyu Peaks]
The Fuyu Peaks were not a popular questing spot. The cold was infamous, even with the best equipment you would slowly take hits to your health, forcing you to turn around once you had no more potions to chug. On top of that, the peak was aptly named, a tall mountain requiring highly levelled Stamina skill to reach the top successfully. That was of course, the rumored location of the phoenix.
Despite being covered head to toe in the thickest fabrics I could find, I was shivering every step we took on the path to the top. Lithia certainly fared better then me with higher Vitality, but I could tell she was also struggling. We both ignored our health bar, we already knew it was getting hit. If it got too low, the color would change and alert us.
“What if we get up there and the phoenix isn’t there?” I asked, groaning as I saw how many steps there were still to go. “Will you despise me?”
Lithia laughed, the sound muffled slightly behind a large wool scarf wrapped around her face. “I’ll just add it to your tab.” We had started a running joke that for ever favor, I owed her another drink at the Torchlight.
Luckily signs of a nest came into view only minutes later. A bed of sticks and feathers was carefully arranged in the mouth of a cave so that it could take in sunlight, but have some protection from the elements.
The phoenix itself however, was not present.
“Can we just take one of those?” Lithia pointed to the ones in the bed.
I shook my head. “Unfortunately, not quite that simple, otherwise wouldn’t quite be legendary worthy. The phoenix has to willingly hand one over. If we tried to pick one of those up, an enchantment would kick in and it would become a weight rivaling this whole mountain.”
“So what now?”
I was about to admit I had no idea when we both heard some kind of distressed chirp coming from the nearby trees.
We both ran towards the sound. In front of a beautiful female orange phoenix were two bandits, clearly trying to take a feather by force. Although the phoenix was spraying fire at them, her foot was trapped under a rock, and she couldn’t move or fly away.
“That won’t even work for them, will it?” Lithia asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t believe so, but either way, we have to help!”
Lithia nodded in agreement. “Finally, I get to punch someone!”
The element of surprise was on our side as we approached from behind the bandits. I carefully stalked up to the weaker looking of the two and cast [Stun], praying it landed. I hadn’t used the spell in ages. It did, and Lithia quickly swooped in and activated [Kick], knocking a man dressed in rogue attire to the ground. Combat was initiated.
[Fight: Start!]
His partner, an archer elf, backed up quickly to get out of melee range before we could catch her. She clearly had some kind of speed buff activated, and was suddenly on a rock 50 feet away. One look at the arrows told me they were infused with fire magic, the perfect recipe for disaster against our equipment boosted for protection against ice instead.
Lithia was checking the rogue was truly knocked out and didn’t see the arrow coming her way. Without a moment to think, I ran in front of her and cast [Dodge]. The hope was the arrow would switch it's auto-select on to me as the new target instead of Lithia, and then my dodge spell would cause it to barely miss me.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to look. It felt as if time slowed down, and all I could hear was the pounding of my heartbeat and the sound the arrow made as it left her bow.
When I felt no damage, I opened my eyes. The arrow had in fact, barely missed me and landed harmlessly in the snow next to us. I breathed a sigh of relief as Lithia launched herself, activating [Rush] to get over to the elf. I knew that took a lot of mana, which worried me a bit as I didn’t know how much we would need to get through this fight.
However, my worry was for naught. After a brief scuffle with Lithia's fists, the archer realized she was outmanned. Her partner was down for the count until he could get some healing. She put her bow away, and then walked over to him with hands up as a sign of surrender. We both stood still as she grabbed him and fast travelled. Fast travel in Oshiala could only be used by expending all remaining mana for the day, and was so was usually saved for a retreat like this.
The [Victory!] message appeared over our heads, and Lithia high-fived me as we received our XP. “I know you don’t like fighting much, but come on, you have to admit that was a little bit fun.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not the word I would use but…”
The phoenix squawked, reminding me of her plight. “Oh, of course!” I exclaimed. “Lithia, would you do the honors?” It looked like the rock was quite heavy, and I wasn’t convinced my Strength level would be enough.
She nodded, and seemingly effortlessly freed the phoenix, who spent a moment licking her sore foot.
“Do you have high animal speaking?” I asked my friend, realizing my level only allowed me to communicate with domestic animals, such as my familiar Rune.
“Er, not really, not a typical barbarian focus…”
We both stood for a moment, awkwardly shifting back and forth, trying to figure out what to do.
But when the phoenix picked up on our lack of communication skills, she gestured towards her nest, and we followed her back. As we approached, a small baby phoenix peeked out from behind a rock in the cave, looking gratefully at us before running to greet her mother. She was more of a reddish color, and her eyes were a bit too big for her face, as if she needed to grow into them.
“Well that’s about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lithia remarked. I was inclined to agree.
After a moment together, the baby phoenix picked up one of the feathers from the nest and placed it before us. The mother nodded in approval. It appeared words hadn’t been needed in the end.
I picked up the feather, bowing in appreciation, and the family of majestic birds sat down in their nest together, paying us no more mind.
[Obtained: Phoenix Feather!]
